I read Tranquility by Tuesday last year, and this idea stuck with me: “Effortful Fun Before Effortless Fun.”
The most straightforward kind of leisure time is, of course, scrolling on our phones or watching something, so Laura Venderkam argues that we can add a little bit of effortful fun when we feel too exhausted to do anything productive before using our screens every evening. For example, why not read a book for a few minutes, work on a puzzle, or get some crochet stitches done before? It’s like a small pre-requisite; you can’t check social media until you read a little. After your effortful fun activity, you will feel good, and those minutes will add up with time.
One effortful fun activity that I do is tracking some metrics on an app called Exist that provides nice analytics for me. I track my waking up time, for instance, and my writing and publishing habits, and most importantly, I set a rating for the day with some notes about it, just like a mini digital journal. Mood tracking has been my favorite part of this simple app since I started using it years ago. So, after I do all this tracking at night, I open social media or watch my favorite series.
Another effortful fun activity that I do is checking my book highlights on the Readwise app, which reminds me of favorite passages I highlighted on Kindle books I read, which Readwise directly imports from my Kindle, or famous quotes from audiobooks or paper books I read, which Readwise offers the option to manually add to my library. I feel inspired whenever I read these quotes and often share them with friends and family on WhatsApp or save them for my Sunday Spark readers.
I genuinely love these apps, and recommend trying them for some effortful fun or finding activities you would like to do more and placing them before these effortless scrolling/watching sessions.
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